


Three Times Hawke Thought Fenris Would Smile and the One Time He Did

by Bearfootscar



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2358899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bearfootscar/pseuds/Bearfootscar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Hawke is quick with a smile, a joke, and plenty of awkwardness, Fenris is not the type to release his smiles easily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2014 DARBB.  
> I was really inspired by Fastforwardmotion's art for this piece. Fenris is smiling ever so slightly in her painting, and I just remember thinking that his smiles are a rare and wonderful treat. So, I created this piece in honor of the elusive Fenris smile.

_I’ll never get used to the stench of sour swill and stale blood in here_ , Hawke thinks as she enters the Hanged Man.  The tell-tale odor wafts over passersby on the street every time the door opens, but to really get the full effect, one must enter the tavern so that the smell wallops like a mallet to the nose.  

Hawke weaves her way through the bar’s early evening crowd only barely resisting the urge to pinch her nose on the way up to Varric’s suite.  Thankfully, she knows that the warm smell of the dwarf’s wood polishing oils will mask the other odors once she makes it up the steps.  As she enters his suite, she finds him just as she had expected, holstering Bianca after her nightly cleaning.  The aroma of lemon and olive oils filling the air.

“There you are, Hawke,” Varric says.  “Bianca was worried she wasn’t going to see you this evening.” He pets his crossbow lovingly before motioning to her regular chair.

“Varric, have I ever mentioned how truly horrid this tavern smells?” she grumbles as she slides into the proffered seat.  

“I think it has a certain charm,” he retorts before pushing a flagon her way.

“As charming as a drunken Darkspawn, that is,” she says with smirks and pulls the mug nearer.

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out next week once we’re hip deep in genlocks.” He grasps his own mug and pulls a large drink.

“By my ears, it sounds like you’re almost looking forward to it, Varric.” The joke doesn’t stop the gooseflesh on her arms from raising.  Even now, a year after their flight from Lothering, the thought of facing the Darkspawn horrors again makes her flesh prickle.  The creatures’ hissing growls still stir her from her sleep, but the memory of their corrupted scent--bloodied steel mixed with sour filth--is what chills her during lonely nights in Gamlen’s back bedroom.  Even Carver puts on a brave face about it, but she hears his boyish whimpers in the night as their lost sister’s name falls from his dream addled lips.

As Hawke vigorously rubs the bumps along her forearms to calm them, she can make out Isabela’s distinctive boots coming up the stairs.  The woman can be as silent as a Chantry mouse when she wishes to, but her leather boots have a certain creak when she is in a hurry.

“Rivaini, you owe me a silver,” Varric calls loudly as he too recognizes Isabela’s approach.  

She appears through the door muttering and finds her way to a chair.  “Blast.  I hate losing a bet,” she huffs.  Her eyes dart past Hawke’s, “This is all your fault you know. I’m never late to a business meeting without proper provocation.”

Hawke starts to defend herself against this accusation, when she hears a quiet cough behind her.

“I assure you it was unintentional.” The voice is quiet, but she still starts a little as she recognizes the deep timbre of the tattooed elf they only just met a few days before.  And much like the first time she heard it, Fenris’ voice warms her cheeks in the most embarrassing way.

“I could...er... reimburse you.  If you wish,” he says coming around to the only unoccupied seat left at the table.

“Reimburse me?” Isabela’s mouth widens into a deep grin.  “I rather like the sound of that.”  She leans forward along the table to pull Fenris’ chair closer to her own, and Hawke notices that her ample cleavage bulges as she motions to him to sit next to her.  He eases himself into the chair across from Hawke silently and meets Isabela’s sultry eyes.

Their eye contact makes Hawke’s stomach churn.  She had swallowed her immediate attraction to the escaped slave, but now with him sitting so close, she could see the details of his markings seductively peeking through the edges of his armor.  Even worse, she can faintly make out a hint of leather and smoke that his hair must smell like. Their close proximity forces those magnetic feelings to start to bubble up again.  

“I suspect you might,” Fenris responds evenly as he leans back against the wooden chair.  He seems to be enjoying Isabela’s eyes roving his body, and Hawke can’t really fault him for that.  She’d never met a man or woman who would resist her friend’s persistence and charm.  In fact, she herself would no doubt end up in the pirate’s bed if Isabela wished it so.

Lost in her own distracting thoughts, Hawke does not feel Varric’s discerning eyes upon her.  Too late, she lifts her flagon to attempt to nconspicuously hide her flaming cheeks, but seeing as she has the subtlety of a bronto, she knows that he knows exactly what she’s thinking.  He grins widely and reclines in his chair to enjoy what must be a very entertaining show.  Rather than concede to the dwarf, she tries desperately not to think about the scent of Fenris’ hair as she gulps her ale and fails in her attempt to quell her fiery face.

“And why not,” Isabela’s voice swirls around the table like a sensual eddy.  “I can be quite flexible.  We could even work out a payment plan if you like.”  She walks her fingers across the table towards his hand, and though he doesn’t withdraw his hand or his eyes, his lips do not turn up into a smile as she would expect a man to do in his situation.  Instead, his expression is cool, almost detached, yet he is clearly not uncomfortable with this course of conversation.

Hawke jams shut her eyes and pulls hard on the ale until the mug is drained. _Maker, why can’t I flirt like that?_ She thinks, _All I can muster is ‘seems like a waste of a perfectly handsome elf’ -ugh._

Relieved of her drink, she lowers her flagon fully intending letting her head smack off the table in resignation to her own awkwardness, but she feels eyes upon her that give her pause.  She steels herself for more of the dwarf’s blatant enjoyment of her mortification, but when she peers out she is met with Fenris’ huge green eyes instead.

Their gazes lock, and while she is certain that Fenris can probably feel her emblazoned face from across the table, she cannot look away.  In her periphery, she can see that Isabela has draped herself over his shoulder, and despite the intensity of his glare, all she can think of is that the pirate must be able to fully indulge in the smell of smoke and leather she’d only been able to hint at before.

 _Andraste’s ass, what’s wrong with me?_ Hawke scolds herself.  He had made his feelings about mages such as herself very clear after they’d cleared that mansion of Danarius’ spirit minions, but her stomach will not stop twisting about and his scent won’t stop haunting her nose and those eyes won’t release her…

“A refill. Yes. Beer,” she stammers as she pushes herself suddenly away from the table.  She nearly falls over the chair leg as she backs away from all three sets of wide eyes upon her, but she catches herself on the door frame and gracelessly stumbles into the hall.  The spell of his eyes is broken for now, but she pauses against the wooden slats of the tavern walls until her vision clears and her breath returns.

“What’s with her?” she hears Isabela ask from within.

“Beats me, Rivaini, now about that silver…”


	2. Chapter 2

The frustrating hilarity of Aveline’s woeful flirting keeps even Fenris and Anders from bickering.   _Thank the Maker for small mercies_ , Hawke thinks as she peers down from the quiet ridge overlooking the two guards patrolling up the winding path of the Wounded Coast.

The three of them had been keeping abreast of Aveline and Donnic to remove the threat of bandits, but the pair’s conversations were painfully awkward and frankly fruitless.  Hawke lowers herself fully onto the rocky ridge and props her chin upon her fist since they have plenty of time before the ambling couple would make it to the next section of the road to be cleared.  

From her perch, she can see that Aveline is doing her best to strike up friendly conversation with Donnic.  They stand an amicable distance apart as they walk up the rocky terrain, but Aveline is clearly struggling.  There are more eyes lowered to the ground and less flirtatious touching than Hawke would like to see.  “C’mon, Aveline, make a move,” she mumbles to the dirt.  

“Things aren’t going well, I take it?” Anders asks as he crouches beside her on the rocky outcropping.  

“About as well as a Varterral trying to ice skate, it seems,” she says smiling at her own joke. Anders grins back at her before sitting on a small tuft of grass that had managed to take seed amongst the cragginess of the hill.  She likes that about him: despite his hardships, he is easy to smile.

“I’d pay a sovereign to see that,” he quips and shifts to sit nearer to her, so near that the feathers from his pauldrons brush lightly against her robes.  He had made his feelings for her plain to see over these last few months since they had returned from their Deep Roads expedition, and despite--or perhaps because of--her inability to reconcile her feelings about Fenris to even herself, she finds herself appreciating the attention.  

As if on cue, she hears Fenris grumble from behind them.  “You should not be so capricious.  There may still be danger about.”   

“The road is quiet enough now that we’ve given those bandits reason enough to turn honest,” Anders says without turning to face the elf.  “A short rest will do Hawke some good.” He places a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.  

“Care to join us?  All that pacing about will only draw attention,” Hawke says trying to compromise, but he scrunches his nose disapprovingly.  

“Suit yourselves,” Fenris mutters before withdrawing back towards the road.

“What crawled into his small clothes?” Anders asks.

“He’s just being cautious.” Hawke pulls her shoulder out from under his still resting palm.  His touch is warm, but she can’t help but think it had been meant as more of a message to Fenris than to her.  “Maybe he’s right,” she says.  Donnic and Aveline are still quite some ways below them, but she suddenly feels anxious to be about their business.

“How many bandits must we slay before that beast is satisfied?”

“Don’t call him that!” she snaps in response.  “Why must you be so…” before she can finish her chastising, they both freeze upon hearing a rustling very near them on the ledge.

She hears Anders whisper a low, “Shhh” even as her blood chills.  Not ten feet away, a bush wavers on this otherwise hot and breezeless day.  Her hand moves to grip her staff, but before she can get her fingers around it, she hears a rush of movement and the snikt of metal against metal.  

She clambers to her feet, but it is over before she even has time to process the situation.  Fenris stands immediately before her, having placed himself between her and a now bloodied bandit, his sword still angled for another strike if necessary.  The man gurgles and makes a feeble step forward before crumpling upon the rocks.  

“You didn’t have to intervene,” Anders grumbles.  “We could have handled it ourselves.”

“It was not you I intended to help,” Fenris growls, then glances over his shoulder at the bewildered Hawke before lowering his blade.

Her throat tightens. Not at having nearly been at the business end of the bandit’s daggers-- Maker knows she’s endured her fair share of blades-- but at the surprising softness of Fenris’ gaze.  White hair hangs over his eyes, but his gaze holds her unwaveringly for a long moment before he straightens and returns his blade to its sheath.  

“We should move on,” he announces when the sound of approaching voices drifts up the path.

She must shake herself to free her feet in order to follow him.

***

A veritable plethora of bandits later and a bit further up the road, Hawke still finds herself mulling over his words.  Fenris is not as plain in his feelings as Anders might be, but even a socially graceless nug should be able to discern that perhaps their relationship is not as hopeless as she had thought.  For many nights she had played out endless scenarios where she confessed her feelings for him, but even in her imagination, not a one of them had been successful.   _Perhaps I need a better imagination,_ she thinks, but then sighs.  “Probably just wishful thinking,” she utters.

They find another precipice to rest upon that grants them a view of Aveline and Donnic working their way up the road.  This particular perch, unlike the last however, allows for them to make out some of the conversation as it echoes up the jagged terrain.  Learning from her previous mistake, she keeps her staff in hand and merely leans against the rock face.

“Maker, she’s bad at this,” Anders chides from beside her.  He’d taken up her side again immediately as she’d settled on this viewpoint, once again leaving Fenris alone a few feet away.  

“Shh,” she says putting a finger to her lips to hush him as she tries to make out Aveline’s latest attempt at small talk.

“It’s a real nice night for an evening,” Aveline’s voice emanates from below, and it takes all of Hawke’s willpower not to instantly croak in laughter.  She smothers her snorting behind her hand and glances over at Anders who is biting his lip so hard that a small bead of blood is forming at the corner of his mouth.  Their eyes meet, and she can’t help but double over in silent giggles.  She grabs his coat and pulls him away from the ledge to try and hide their presence, but they only just manage to get back down the path before they both burst out in full blown laughter.  Fenris eyes her sharply at first, but even his sternness softens as mirthful tears roll down her cheeks.  

It’s funny, really funny, but Fenris does not break into a chuckle nor even a hint of a smile.  He merely crosses his arms and shakes his head at the two mages who are literally rolling about in the dirt in guiltless, unabashed laughter.  He observes them for another moment, allowing their fun to run its course, before extending a hand and helping her stand up and collect herself.

“Hopeless,” Anders chuckles as he brushes the dirt from his coat.  “She’d do better to just get this fellow alone in a room.  Life’s too short.”  

She snickers again and nods her head in approval.  Next to her, however, she feels Fenris grow tense.  She finishes dusting off her hopelessly soiled robes and feels his wrist twitch.  Then a gauntleted hand timidly brushes against her palm.  She thinks it is an accident at first, but when his hand nestles around hers instead of retreating, she dares not turn to look.  Instead, she simply rubs her thumb along the metal until it finds a warm patch of uncovered flesh to nestle against.  

It lasts perhaps only a minute before they break away to move up the path, but in that minute, she can feel his pulse throbbing sweetly against her skin.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Someday,” Hawke grumbles as she summons magic to her hand while the massive Arishok swirls his equally massive battle axe before her, “I’ll make a plan that will actually go as intended.  Unfortunately, today is not that day.”

Sighing, she hurls the frosty energy from her hands at her duelling foe.  The frozen crystals are shrugged off like annoying gnats as the Qunari hurtles himself towards her with frightening force and a guttural battle cry

All eyes in the room are upon her.  The nobles, the other Qunari, even the dead eyes of Viscount Dumar are all aghast as they brace themselves to watch the inevitable undoing of a small apostate under the hands of a powerful warrior.  She knows that her friends eyes are upon her as well.  With a quick sideways glance, she sees Fenris’ hands are upon Aveline’s shoulders who clearly does not approve of this solitary duel.  It is taking all the strength Fenris can muster to subdue her from interfering.  Anders is looking solemn beside the two of them, and though their battle has only just begun, she can see the blue healing magic starting at his fingertips.  

 _They don’t think I can win this_ , she realizes.  

In just the split second she has taken to gather her bearings, the Arishok’s blade is nearly upon her, and while her innards sink, she acknowledges that her chances of victory are beyond ludicrous.   Still, her fingers twitch as she calls forth more of her magic and levels her gaze into the eyes of her foe.   _This is no time to think about dying_ , she tells herself before laying down an arc of icy spikes at the feet of the oncoming Qunari.  

_Now run!_

***

Mana and lyrium depleted, muscles flagging, and raggedly drawing breaths, Hawke relies solely on her staff in the face of the seemingly insurmountable Arishok.  The battle hardened Qunari is trying not to show outward signs of his own failing body, but she can see his shoulders slumping.  No other foe she’d ever faced had taken as much of her magic as he, and while she wishes it did not have to end this way, she seizes upon an opportunity to fire one more shot while he is weak.  

As his knees buckle, she gropes to lean against her staff for support, but the entire room contorts and ebbs around her as she slumps to the carpet.  Before her head thumps against the floor, her voice creaks, “Fenris…”

***

“Well, I’m either dreaming or dead,” she announces to the gnarled hazy Fade trees around her.  She is no stranger to this realm ever since her father taught her how to maintain her awareness while she dreamt.  “Precautionary training” he had called it.  Protecting herself from malignant influence was important to Malcolm, and was the final lesson he was able to impart.  

“Papa,” she whispers to the strange vista.  

An odd representation of their farm in Lothering unfurls around her.  The barn with the broken door Carver swore he would fix but never did, the corn stalks swaying in the breeze as far as she could see, and even the little farmhouse complete with Leandra’s white rocking chair on the porch are all accurate to her memory.   But unlike her childhood home, this place is eerily quiet.  No cattle stomping and munching, no insects buzzing, no distant Chantry bells echoing over the hills.  She allows herself just a few moments to indulge in the scenery from her spot on the porch before gathering up her robes and standing.  

Normally when her dreams bring her here, she lingers around the farm, poking in rooms and drawers and waxing nostalgic in the shadow of the barn where her child-self once practiced her magic in secret.  However, she could allow herself no further dallying.

“How does one figure out if they are dead or not?” she wonders aloud as she steps off the porch.  

Moving off through the corn fields, she realizes that she does not quite remember what lays beyond.  Was the road this way or East?  She pauses to gather her bearings, but is met only with a sea of waist high stalks in all directions.  Shrugging, she continues in the same direction until the familiar farmland starts to diminish and change into unknown rocky terrain.    

The illusion of her memories finally falls completely away, and Hawke finds herself abruptly at the ridge of a deep and menacing looking chasm.  On the other side, the jagged green landscape looks much the same as it does on her side, so she decides to follow the edge as it slopes downhill.

As she walks, her mind drifts to thoughts of her favorite waking distraction: reliving her first and only night with Fenris.  The memory is truly bittersweet as she recalls his smoke and leather hair brushing against her cheek as well as the crack of his voice as he walked away from her with equal measure.  She always tries to focus on the sweet ministrations of his touch, but inevitably, the echo of his footfalls down the staircase and the bitter finality of the front door closing behind him win out.

Then the fantasies begin: he shows up at her door one night and wordlessly just kisses her; she heals his wounds after a battle and he catches her hand in his own before she withdraws; she returns home after a night clearing out gangs from Hightown to find him waiting in her chambers to help her bathe.  These daydreams may be nice, but the temporal thoughts leave her more sad than satisfied.

She is shaken from her thoughts when a distant voice seems to echo up the craggy slope.  With a shake of her head to free the last lingering images of a naked tattooed elf from her mind, she pauses to try and make out the noise.  After a moment, she hears it again, but cannot make out the words.  Curiosity compels her feet to shuffle down the slope in the direction of the sound.

As she draws nearer, the voice grows more distinctive and her feet move more quickly along the rocky edge.  Her father’s warning voice repeats in her mind, “Everything in the Fade is a trick.” Yet her heart races as the distinctive sound of her name carries through the gorge.

Finally, she reaches the bottom of the slope and rounds a corner to find herself inches from a deathly steep drop into the dark rift.  She catches herself just as the detritus start to crumble under foot and throws herself back against the rock face of the narrow ledge.  When the throbbing of her pulse quiets in her ears, she hears again nearby, “Hawke!”

Glancing around desperately, she finally makes out the distant figure of white hair and black armor across the canyon.

“Fenris!” she calls and the figure turns towards her.  After only a moment of what must be squinting incredulity, she sees him slide down the loose rocky ledge towards her.  As he grows nearer, he calls out to her again and again as if to assure himself that she is no trick of the mind.  She returns his calls each time and waves him closer until he too dips his toes over the edge of the chasm and can go no further.

“Hawke, are you alright?” he gasps through heaving breaths.

“Yes,” she hesitates but then repeats, “Yes, I think so.”

Despite their distance, his face visibly relaxes and she silently decides not to bring up the question as to whether she is dead or not.

“Can you see no way over?” he asks once his breath returns.  She again surveys the landscape, but the only way she can move is up the path from whence she came.

“I don’t think so.  Can you?”  He takes a long, hard look around, but shakes his head.

“It appears we are at an impasse,” he answers.  

She sighs deeply.  “It figures,” she says.  “The one time you actually want to see me again, and there’s a pesky canyon in the way.”  She drops her gaze to the darkness between them.

“I always wish to see you, Hawke.”  His voice wavers as it travels to her, and her throat immediately tightens.

“You do?”

“I…” his voice and eyes drop away for a painful moment, but then meet hers again and he simply nods.

 _What an awful time to be dead_ , she silently admonishes herself.

After a quiet moment where she lets this new information sink in, the periphery of her vision begins to swirl.  The edges of the rocks around her start to grow hazy.  Behind a brief moment of bewilderment, she begins to recognize the ethereal departure of the Fade.  

“I’m waking up!” she calls to Fenris who nods despite the quizzical look he gives her.

“I will be waiting,” he replies then gives a tiny wave before the eddying blur of the shrinking Fade consumes her.

***

She becomes aware of herself in a familiar place, but before daring to open her eyes, she squeezes them tightly and thinks, Please be my bed and not a coffin.

Allowing only slivers of light in bit by bit, she slowly opens her eyes.  Familiar red and gold linens greet her as she looks about her chambers.  The early morning sun is just peeking through her window and embers flicker slightly in the fireplace.  She deeply breathes in the comforting smells of honey and myrrh wafting from her bathroom and is met with aching ribs and stiff joints.  And a headache like a wyvern is clamping down on her skull.

Her hand moves to cover her forehead, but she realizes that something weighs it down.  She lifts her neck as slowly as possible to avoid further angering her pounding head to find a tussle of white hair resting on the edge of her bed.  She follows the strands to see that there is in fact, a sleeping elf in a chair pulled up close to her bed, one hand placed protectively over hers.

Disregarding for the moment all thoughts that his neck will be incredibly stiff when he awakes, she grasps at the memories of her fleeing dream before they depart for good.  Mercifully, she manages to grab the good stuff before it dissipates.  At least one of us needs to remember.

Trying to return her head back to its pillow, she winces and lets out a low moan, which makes Fenris’ fingers close around her hand tightly.  While she appreciates the reassuring squeeze, it does cause her to let out a quiet yelp as bruises press together painfully.

This noise starts him awake and he lifts his head.  Predictably, a hand moves to rub his obviously sore neck, but he pauses mid air when he apparently realizes her eyes are upon him.  The haziness of his eyes clears immediately and his face softens in relief.

“You are awake,” he says as their eyes meet.  She waits a moment hoping he will offer her a rare twitch of his lips, but he does not grace her with a smile.

“Ari-shocking, I know,” she replies, attempting a feeble joke, but not even her winning wit coerces an upward turn to appear on his face.  “ Too soon?” she offers.  

Instead of responding, he reaches out tremulously with both hands and cups her face in his palms.  His skin feels cool against her cheeks, and even though her neck creaks in protestation, she leans into his touch.

“Hush, Hawke,” he whispers before letting his lips fall upon her forehead.

 


	4. Chapter 4

“Sharing a room with Bethy and Carver wasn’t all bad,” Hawke explains as she plops herself down on the bed next to Fenris.  The little red book in his hands wobbles, but he seems unperturbed by her interruption.  “Bethy and I would gossip about the cute farm boys around Lothering late into the night, and Carver would just huff and roll over in his bunk.  We would always try to get him to blush by exaggerating about the boys’ most pronounced features.”    She raises her eyebrows conspiratorially, but his eyes do not lift from the page.

“Mmhm,” he mumbles in response.  She wrinkles her nose at his inattentiveness.  He’s been challenging himself with more complex texts lately, and while she has to respect his diligence, his concentration had been taking away from their nightly conversations.  

She glances around her bed chambers and sighs.  Her own unread book lies on the bedside table, a Nevarran adventure story about dragon hunting that Bethany had recommended to her nearly ten years ago.  Their copy had burned with the rest of Lothering, but she came across a rare copy in the Lowtown markets last week.  While she had every intention of finally reading it in her sister’s honor, it lay untouched thus far.

Hawke reaches for the thick volume, but her hand hesitates.  The tale she’d begun still clings to her tongue, so instead she grabs two pillows from the head of the bed and plops them unceremoniously in Fenris’ lap.  He lets out a quick oof as she situates her head upon his thighs, but otherwise remains undaunted in his reading.

Once settled, Hawke continues her story,”Anyway, Carver would pretend that such things were of no interest to him, but we knew better.”

“Oh?” Fenris says, but she is not sure if he is actually listening or just playing along to placate her.  However, the deluge of memories can longer be plugged.

“We heard him sneak out of our room one night when he was…” she places a hand to her forehead and rubs her brow trying to stroke the information forward, ”…sixteen or so, I guess.  Bethy happened to still be awake, and Andraste’s ass was she ever the curious one, so she tiptoed out of bed to follow him.”

Hawke’s hands rise from where they’d been neatly folded across her stomach to illustrate the tiptoeing with her fingers, which coerced a faint chuckle from Fenris.  “As Bethy tells it, she followed Carver out the farmhouse, into the yard, and behind the barn.  When he dipped into the shadowy side, she lingered behind because she thought she heard a voice.” At this part, Hawke dramatically puts a finger to her lips and says, “Shh.”  Fenris’ raises one eyebrow in response, but his focus seems to still lie in the thin red volume he is holding.  She draws in a anticipatory breath, then continues her story in a whisper.

“Bethany pushed herself against the barn and could hear whispering, but she could only make out the word ‘Peaches’.  She listened hard for a few moments, but Carver and whoever he was with got all quiet.”  At this both of Fenris’ eyebrows raise slightly, and though he’s not put the book down, Hawke knows that she’s got his attention now.

“So Bethy was really curious, right? Eventually she can’t take it anymore and she peeked around the edge of the barn to see what he was up to.  Well, what she saw made her clamp her hands to her mouth or else she would’ve probably screamed.”  Hawke mimics the action by placing both her hands over Fenris’ mouth and laughing.  

His eyes brighten in amusement as he asks between her fingers, “Am I now your sister in this tale?”  She removes her hands, but then quiets him with a quick “Shush”.

“Don’t distract me now,” she says, “this is the best part!” He nods and she continues.  “Bethy came running into the house and jumped on my bed to wake me up.  She was in such a tizzy, I thought the Templars had finally come for us.  But then she explained to me what she saw behind the barn.”  Hawke pauses to pique his interest, and when his eyes are finally upon her, she explains, “I remember her words exactly: ‘Carver is kissing a girl!  With his tongue!’”  

Hawke looks up at his face hoping the tale has earned her a bemused smile, but Fenris only harumphs a bit before returning to his book.  Her audience’s attention may have waned, but her own smile lingers with the memory, and so she goes on talking, “We giggled ridiculously about the whole thing until neither of us could breathe. Then we layed back on our bed together and waited for Carver to return so we could tease him about the whole thing.  

“I remember looking out the window at the stars twinkling sweetly overhead and letting out a huge sigh.  I slowly became aware of just how comfortable I felt, there in that dark room with my little sister leaning against me.  We’d spent so much time running from Templars that I’d never felt that safe before.  But right then and there, it finally felt like home.”  She ends the story with a wistful sigh.  

“I am…familiar with the feeling,” Fenris admits quietly as one hand comes to rest in a lock of hair near her ear.

“You are?” She looks up to find him gazing down at her softly.  The corners of his mouth start to turn up, then slowly they broaden into a generous, true smile that spreads warmth through her whole body.

“I am now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Copious gratitude to the brilliant and talented Nova for her glorious beta skills.


End file.
